No , he's saying the Wii is the choice of the price concious buyer , cutting the price would therfore have a minimal effect.

Well then, the same can be said for ps3 buyers, no? i know that i am not gonna buy the Ps3 until it's at least at the Wii's pricepoint and wouldn't be surprised if a great deal of people feel the same way i do.

Huh , how is that at all relevant to what he said ?

@kowenicki : Of course a price cut would give the Wii an immediate boost in sales however , I can't see the long term sales of a relativley cheap item being increased by anything but a large price cut.

We all know Nintendo has a conservative approach to their price points , it's unlikely that they'll cut the price of their Wii unless there is a distinct need to.

Keep in mind that while the Wii is selling many more units weekly they are also making many more units weekly. It's not so much that the sales need to drop to a "normal level" as it is that once they drop a certain % below production levels they will hit a point where costs dictate they make an adjustment to either the value, the price, or the production levels.

Adding value to the purchase to entice folks is where they will start before they bother messing with the price or production. Some of the obvious examples of what they can do are colors and/or adding a WMP to the box (they might just do this either way). There are a ton of things you can do without touching the price, and considering that their first cut will almost have to be at least $50 there are an absolute ton of things they can offer worth way less than $50 that will keep people happy and buying.

Why would they drop the price when they're only now managing to keep up with demand? Demand would just go to the point where they can't supply it all again, and excess demand does not bring in profit. Nintendo will drop the price as demand starts to waiver, like with almost all products.

They could do it for some reasons, one that springs to my mind is conquering sooner more of their potential buyers in case they feel the need to release a new Wii when HDTV's become the majority in households (but IMVHO, Nintendo will probably make sure they don't get caught unprepared in case of need, but they'll release Wii2 only when needed, if this happens later than predicted, so much better, production costs will be lower since the beginning and Wii 1 sales will further grow).

Why would they cut when they are constantly outselling their competitors without a cut, that would be like throwing free money away.

Nintendo just said they are finally reaching a perfect balance between supply and demand.

I doubt they will want to cut the price now.

If they are still selling 350k a week, in a month like April, where there is such a serious software drought, there is no way they will drop the price.


Not with Wii Sports Resort coming
Not with Punchout in May
Not with The Conduit, Overlord: Dark Legend in June
Not with Sin & Punishment 2 in July
Not with Madden 2010 in August
Not with Boom Blox 2 and a new WWE game in September
A DS Zelda in October
A Mario & Sonic at the Winter games in November
Christmas in December
No More Heroes 2 in January.......

You catch my drift.

If it comes too soon, it'll hurt Wii most of all. They can't increase sales over current levels, because even Nintendo can't sell a Wii that hasn't been built.

The price cut will come when demand starts to go down in earnest, after they've bumped it back up through new colors and possibly a bundle or two and it's then started to go down again. In other words, not anytime soon.

Whatever happens, Japan is in the most need of incentives to get a Wii these days.